CES 2012 Another Record Year

On Monday January 9, 2012 the Consumer Electronic Show also known as CES opened with a record number of exhibitors. There are over 3,100 exhibitors this year compared to 2,865 in 2011. There is more than 1.85 million square feet of exhibit space and it would fill 37 football fields. Prior to CES officially opening on Sunday night CES Unveiled was sold out with a record number of exhibitors, seventy-eight. The highest number of media was also drawn to Unveiled on Sunday night. Major categories among exhibitors were tablet, smartphones, solar charging devices, digital health products.

Coming from CES the biggest talk seems to be centered around OLED, Ultra High Definition television, the growth of voice and gesture commands, ultrabooks, smart appliances, connected cars and the numbing number of cases. There are somethings that are still at the concept stage but look pretty cool such as the Ubuntu TV. Below are some charts showing the trends showing up on Twitter coming out of CES 2012. The first chart compares the tweets that occurred with the hashtag CES in 2012 compared to 2011. There was a more steady rise this year however in both years a large spike occurred right before and during the opening keynote by Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer. After the keynote the number of tweets went down and remain fairly steady. The second chart shows the what categories are being mention the most on Twitter with the hashtag CES. The final chart is a look at the top brands mentioned. There are several other infographs like these that can be found over at Mashable. What I found most interesting is the item that is trending the most are the OED screens, the one item that most consumers are unlikely to be able to buy, at least for several years.

CES is a way for exhibitors to introduce to the world what is coming in the current year. Whether their products succeed will be up to the consumer.